Welcome! This blog will be focusing on a new lecture course about games I will be teaching at the University of California at San Diego this spring. I created this blog at the request of some of the readers of Boardgamegeek.com who expressed interest in learning what exactly I will be covering in the course’s 30 lectures. Facing a mountain of books, games, films, articles, and notes, and watching the days count down, I’m eager to find that out myself.
Having fantasized for years about teaching a course like this, when the genie finally popped out of the bottle and granted my wish, I found myself overwhelmed by the possibilities. In my first brainstorming session, potential topics came pouring out: the definition of a game, the history of games, cross-cultural studies of games, play theory, game theory, boundaries of play, emergent play, narrative, the structure of games, the social aspects of gaming, cheating, competition, strategy, chance, technology and games, games and education, game design, gamer culture, the semiotics of games, and on and on. Clearly, I need to narrow things down, especially if I expect to fit in the various activities I’ve been thinking about.
My class will fit into a required series of courses (yes, required) designed to give first-year students an introduction to the humanities, so it doesn't make sense to teach this subject from the perspective of one academic discipline. Instead, students will get a mix of cultural studies, performance studies, art, sociology, anthropology, and history, with a wee bit of critical theory thrown in to confuse them. The point is to demonstrate to the students how anything, even something as “frivolous” as games, can be studied as a cultural artifact and subject to rigorous critical analysis.
If it sounds like I’m puncturing a hole in gaming and letting the fun drain out, be assured that I’m determined to make this an enjoyable, thought-provoking course for the students. In lecture, we will play large-scale games and have competitions such as quiz shows -- whatever I can devise for 300 students. I’m also hoping to create a persistent mystery or puzzle-oriented game that will last throughout the quarter. In section, the teaching assistants will conduct sessions of Werewolf and other social games. There will be the usual writing assignments, but students also will get the opportunity to invent game-like structures that model some aspect of their realities (I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask them to invent a whole game). They will be asked to identify cultural meanings embedded in existing games and to change those meanings by modifying them. And they will be asked to analyze the games they play, whether they be team sports, board games, a video games, or MMORPGs.
I’m making this all public because I view this class as an extension of the real-world and online gaming communities to which I belong. I know I’m not in this alone. I’m eager to hear your feedback, suggestions and criticisms. I want to know what you would talk about if you were the lecturer, and what you would interest you if you were a student. Please feel free to comment!
Next post: How this all happened.
About Me
- Roger Ngim
- San Diego, California, United States
- I am an artist, teacher and enthusiast of games of all kinds. I particularly like strategy board games.
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11 comments:
What texts or textbooks do you intend to use?
I'll be interested in following this blog; I'm a college instructor as well. I've added it to my blogs folder.
The course will have a reader that will include writings by play theorists such as Johan Huizinga, Roger Callois, Brian Sutton-Smith, and Gregory Bateson. Newer writings will come from people such as Jesper Juul and Henry Jenkins. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman's "Rules of Play" and "The Game Design Reader" are indispensable resources. There are a slew of other books I will draw from, including Steven Johnson's "Emergence," Kendall Walton's "Mimesis as Make Believe," Nicholas Rescher's "Luck," and Gerard Jones' "Killing Monsters." I haven't yet decided what books to assign, but I'm leaning toward Stefan Fatsis' "Word Freak" and McKenzie Wark's "Gamer Theory."
I'll be very interested to see how the course goes, Roger, and wish you the best of luck. It's refreshing to see a humanities based approach, particularly from someone whose understanding of game doesn't end when the power goes out :-)
Have you considered Bernard Suit's 'Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia'? It's not exactly critical theory but raises some interesting points about the voluntary and collaborative nature of gameplay.
Same here. This is very exciting and I wish you the best of luck. I'll be interested to see what makes its way into the reader. On the philosphical side of things, you may want to have a look at Friedrich Schiller's concept of Spieltrieb, or play drive, a force that is to reconcile the ethical with the sensuous (developed in the Aesthetic Education of Man). GoPanthers, BGG
As a fellow UCSD alumni (Revelle 96, SOM '00) I am very excited to see this is being done at the one of the best 'below the radar' schools in the country! I signed on with RSS. Is this part of Revelle's Humanities intro? Feel free to give us some assignments in helping design your course, I will be thinking about the 300 person type games you could do. maybe something where a group of 10-20 acts as one, that way you could get down to a '30' player game or so? Sort of a game within the group and then a meta game, like Frisch Fische frikadellen (spelling way wrong) by Friedmann Friese.
Roger, I think you should strongly consider having the students create a game. This might be best as a group activity, maybe 2-4 students per group. But I've heard of several exercises in which children, teens, and adults are tasked with doing this in a limited time period and the results are usually enlightening and often quite good. I don't know how or if you would grade this, but I think it could give the students a useful and enjoyable hands-on task.
If you're looking for recommended reading lists, I would enthusiastically suggest Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games. In addition to giving the rules for about 40 original games, it contains a good deal of information about games in other times and other societies and gives an excellent glimpse into the thinking process of a master creator in his field. The book is almost 40 years old, but I think it's still relevant to a scholarly study. Sackson himself would have been a strong supporter of what you're trying to do.
Splendid. I wish I had had a chance to take a course like this. Might I recommend purchasing Icehouse pieces and having students create game around the pieces (There is usually an annual contest for Icehouse game designs to which students could submit for extra credit). Last I checked, the company has an education rep; you might even be able to talk them into coming for a guest lecture (www.looneylabs.com). Also, have you considered audio recording your classes and putting them together as a podcast series? Lastly, I would recommend Hobby Games: The Hundred Best as a text for your course. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1932442960/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance)
Huzonfirst, I'll think about the game design project. I'm worried that I'll get a bunch of simplistic roll and move type games. The assignment will need to be very specific, asking them to choose something to model (even if it is something as vague as a conflict over territory) before choosing a mechanic or components. Given the limited time they'll have (this is a quarter-long class), I'm more concerned that they think about issues of representation than creating completely functional game.
I have a copy of Sackson's book and might draw some examples from it or adapt one of the games for a large crowd. Thanks for reminding me.
Marshall, I am planning to record my lectures. I'll have to find out if the university has any policies about making them publicly available.
I may have more than 300 students, so I will probably resort to something cheaper and more readily available than Icehouse pieces. On the other hand, Treehouse is good example of creating a workable game from minimal components.
I need to put out a call to possible guest lecturers who could appear either in person or via Skype. I have one guest, a Jeopardy contestant, lined up so far.
hmm, newspaper "solo" games/puzzles of crosswords, sudoku, word search, word scramble, do the bind people societally as a common experience? are they dying with newspapers?
Wordplay
I've also thought that preference and ability in different types of those is an indicator to brain structure (good memory, good critical analysis, etc.)
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